The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-11-05


 and welcome against the arrival of those who are to follow. all in good time when the conditions are ready.
 Faith that there is land of better opportunities.
 Courage to move on, never stopping to doubt. and thus proving the pos session of the germs of the power to accomplish, in proportion to tine will to dare.
 Tonight, as the week is being rolled up to be packed away with it's records of worth, work, weakness and wicked ness, to stand tor or against us, we read a letter from an old friend who appears to have lost his head and courage in a wallow of grief. He writes us that his son is dead and that his heart is broken. That there is little or nothing left for him to live for. That he mourns, mourns, mo rms. That he doubts the lite over tnere. That he has no proof that his son lives in another world, and fears that he will never see him more. He asks plain-spoken friend what to do and how to do it.
 Be man, and all things will fol- low you. Man has no right to live for himself. God does not live for Himself. Christ did not not live for Himself, nor did those who walked, worked and suffered with Him. Not one of the benefactors of mankind and helpers of God, and the good angels ever live for himself or herself alone. No man has right to dismount from himself and to mount his son and ride behind, as the two journey along. Men have no right to live, labor, think, plan and deprive themnelves of the means to growth, and opportunity to meditation, in order to prove that their son is not able to care for him. self No man has right to be selfish in person, or by proxy to worship anything on earth, but a principle. Our duty is to help bring humanity into the world and then teach manli- ness, independence, self-reliance, in- dustry, courage and labor as the only honest means to accomplish.
 Men go down into doubt, gloom, weakness, worthlessness, because they have not faith to keep on crossing the ocean and getting there.
 Life is immortal, or it is not. If not, you make mistake in binding yourself into another so that you can not see out, feel out or get out with out travail. If not, what sense is there in kicking? Crying over spilled milk does not improve the milk. It only adds more water to it's weakness.
 But life is eternal. It has existed from the first, till by process of beget- ment and birth it is thrown of as all entity, and sent on its eternal way. There is no such thing as death, if thereby we infer or hold out that life has ceased to live. From birth, for ever, the way is onward and upward in all that is good and completing in knowledge. We are all immigrants on the way to the over there country. The we'll bred soul knows that it has higher work and more pleasant mission than to wait on the shore, dig it's knuckles into it's eyes and weep, because it is a little in advance of those who are 10 follow. Nor does it sit on the shore from which the ship sailed, and weep, weep, weep and spill itself out in tears till the ship returns for more vOyagers.
 Your boy grew weary of being cod dled. He has passed on to take q higher degree of lessons in manly in- dependence. He had no need to be considered as baby, and he was mak- ing you weaker the longer you car ried him, as if doubting his ability to walk. He has simply crossed the ocean, to be your senior in the world over there, as you were his senior while here You and your wife, his mother, gave him good start, the foundation of integrity, but you have never lifted your eyes from him, and at last, he speeds away on his work.
 You will not find him in the toys, books or other articles he left. Do not keep them as tear-starters. Give them all away to children of the poor, and that will be your first step in the right direction. The grave is not junk shop, and in the next world the tools and play things are not of the kind used here.
 His body came to you by process oi naturalization, so slow that you could not see its growth till it had grown. Your son used the body till it was time for him to move on and away. He is busy in the other life. In his work over there in the new country, the new life, do not compel him to drag a pitcher of tears along after him or to be pointed as the new conner whose father is riding him, because oi his inability to see, and to endure, and to walk.
 Our best and our busiest work is